


What Love Is

by starrynight (imamillennial)



Category: Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
Genre: F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 04:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14536863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imamillennial/pseuds/starrynight
Summary: She loved him. Or at least, she believed she did.





	What Love Is

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in, like, an hour and a half at three am. Hope you enjoy I guess.

She loved him. Or at least, she believed that she did. Loved the way being with him was so much different than being with anyone else. Was so much better. Loved his every touch and moan and kiss. Adored the breathless kisses and his weight pressing her into the mattress as he finished. The way he’d hold her close as he fell asleep. Would press kisses to her neck and shoulder to wake her up. She had been so sure it was love. That perhaps her sister had been wrong about her when she claimed that the blonde could never understand what love was. She was so sure that she loved him. Spent more and more time with him - both in bed and outside of it. Would feel an ache deep down in her soul when he was gone. Wanted to sleep with him for reasons other than merely to get off.

She thought he loved her, too. Honestly believed him when he said it. When he murmured it in her ear and breathed it into her skin, every word making her shiver. Made butterflies grow in her stomach and lit everything in her on fire. And she’d repeated it - words spoken with an uncharacteristic reverence for everything they meant. A realization that would make her heart swell. And it scared her at first. Terrified her that she felt so much for him. That with every touch and kiss and word she fell harder and harder. She didn’t fuck anyone else - a development she would barely notice until she woke up one morning and couldn’t remember the last time she’d had anyone other than him in her bed. She didn’t need them.

She would have done anything for him. Found herself forgetting just why she wanted to return to Heaven. Found herself for once considering permanently remaining there on Earth - couldn’t stand the thought of losing him. Didn’t dare let herself think of it, no matter how much she knew it would happen one day. No matter how much that voice in the back of her mind whispered that one day, he would die. That he was mortal. That there was a reason that angels were supposed to stay away from them. But she loved him, and she wanted to spend every moment that she could with him. Finally understood what her sister felt when she fell for a ghost, but she wouldn’t let this end so soon. After all, the apocalypse brought them together, and it would take the forces of both Heaven and Hell to rip them apart.

She thought it would last forever, but like so many things before, she was wrong. It had always been a readied bomb, but one everyone assumed she would finally end up detonating. She wasn’t stupid. She knew others bet on how long it would last - whether it would make it through another day or another week or even another month, if the better was feeling optimistic. One thing they all agreed on, though? That she would be the one who ended it. That she’d get bored of sleeping with the same person. That she would cheat on him, as if there was ever anything official between them. That she would finally admit that she was only using him for his massive dick. Oh, but she didn’t. She wasn’t. Whether or not it was true, she believed down to her very bones that she was in love. That this was exactly what everyone believed she would never experience as long as she lived.

And maybe they were right. At the very least, they managed to convince him. Perhaps not all at once, of course, but she would feel him pulling away. Noticed the way their sex became more and more routine. How he stopped talking as much. How he stopped holding her at night. But she didn’t say anything - didn’t dare. Would instead try to convince herself that it was normal. That of course it would lose its passion. Would try to keep him interested - try even harder to prove that she really did love him. But he stopped saying it back, and her own words became a cry for help. A plea to the God she’d nearly disowned to grant her just this one thing. To grant her redemption in the form of this love. But He couldn’t grant her this even if He tried.

The feelings of mortals are fickle things. It was something her mother told her time and time again, but something the angel never believed. Never properly registered until he was standing in front of her, offering her a shrug as he said it had been fun. That it was time for him to move on - go to college and find someone he could marry. Have fun and make new friends. And just like that, she understood heartbreak. Finally understood just what all those songs meant when they sang about lost loves and the one that got away. Understood why it was called a broken heart, because every part of it felt shattered. But she wouldn’t cry. Didn’t dare let herself when he was so nonchalant about it. When he spoke as if it had been a one night stand. As if they hadn’t been together for months. As if she really was just a whore and this was only a fling.

And maybe it was. Maybe she’d mistaken his professions of love for something more than they were. Maybe she’d fallen too fast and thought too little. Maybe she imagined it all out of desperation to have at least one person who cared for her with her sister either living among demons or entirely dead. But none of that really mattered, did it? Because his every word was like another dagger buried deep in her chest, afraid to speak for fear of her voice cracking and unsure what she would say anyways. Could barely bring herself to make eye contact - searching for an explanation in those beautiful green eyes. Not that it turned out to matter much when, after a moment, he’d go. Would leave her standing in the doorway of the church, desperately trying to figure out just where she’d gone wrong. Just what she’d done to ruin everything. Just why she wasn’t enough. 

There was no real answer. Of course there wasn’t. Or rather, at least nothing definitive she could think of. Couldn’t identify the catalyst that perhaps propelled their relationship into the ground. Couldn’t determine just why he stopped loving her. Wasn’t even sure if he ever did in the first place. Only knew now that she loved him. That if she didn’t, this couldn’t hurt so badly - undeniably worse than any punishment she’d received when she was exiled from Heaven. And oh, the irony of it all. The irony that love was touted as better than casual sex when none of the others she slept with could ever come near hurting her this badly. When this wound was so much deeper than harsh words or general rudeness could ever cut.

She wished it never happened. Wanted so desperately to go back to when she was ignorant to just how incredible love could be. Wanted to once again not know just how much she was missing. But she couldn’t. Of course she couldn’t. So she’d have to pretend. Act as if it never happened. As if she never loved him. As if she never fell for him so incredibly hard that she proved her sister wrong. Did anything she could to forget that he ever existed. But she couldn’t. After all, he would still visit Daten to visit his old friends. Would never so much as speak to her, no matter how many times they saw each other, though, and she didn’t dare reach out. Only watched through sideways glanced and wondered if he ever thought of her. Wondered if he ever thought of her for even a moment in the dead of night when he jerked off.

But his visits would grow less and less frequent until eventually it had been months and she finally gave up on seeing him. Resigned herself to the fact that she’d never hear from him again. Would never see him until one night, after too many glasses of wine and too few decent fucks, she’d search for him on Facebook - find pictures of him with another girl. Could see the love in his eyes and the way his arm wrapped around her, pulled her closer. And it hurt. Not nearly as much as it had those many months ago, but it still hurt. Would develop in the form of a soft ache just below her sternum that refused to be drowned by alcohol. And yet, she’d try - drank until she finally managed to pass out in the closest thing to sleep she could possibly manage.


End file.
